Book marketers tell me they spend hours and significant sums of money promoting their books, but experience little results. They do not understand that the impact of promotion is not the number of press releases, emails and media appearances that they conduct. It is the lack of communication and engagement with the recipients. If they do not understand why they should buy your books, they won’t.

People are inundated daily with mass communications that are directed to a general audience. Your prospective buyers are busy, and will not read or listen to a message if they don’t think it will improve their circumstances in some way. Be more successful breaking through the clutter by first getting their attention, giving them some reason to learn more and then act.

Are your sales at the point where you expected them to be when you published your book? Are you doing the same things you always did to try to sell them? Low sales are a fact of life for most authors, but they have probably not heard the maxim, “If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got.” If your sales are below forecast, maybe it is time to try something different.

You may have your book on Amazon, and you are probably active on social media. You feel that have too much time and money invested in getting to where you are, so you will keep doing what you have been doing until it works.

Why in the world would someone do that? Based on my discussions with many authors there are at least three reasons.

You most likely use 21st century Internet-enabled book-marketing processes. However, your sales are probably occurring at dial-up speed if you are implementing mid-20th century marketing actions.

You wouldn’t put up with a 1930s-era phone system, or forego the benefits of modern technology, but that is what you are doing when you fail to sell your books to non-bookstore buyers. These could be retailers (discount stores, supermarkets, airport stores) or non-retail buyers (corporations, associations) who could buy in large, non-returnable quantities.

Selling to these special-sales buyers is not a major leap for many publishers. In many cases, you already have the programs in place to do it. Selling to non-bookstore retailers uses many of the distribution partners with which you already work. Begin there, and then expand your sales to build upon your current base, giving you a solid foundation and focal point to grow your sales.

Many product ideas came from observing a phenomenon in one area of life and applying that to a totally different product. The idea of Velcro arose when Swiss engineer George de Mestral took his dog for a walk. He noticed how burrs of the burdock plant stuck to the dog’s fur. He replicated that to invent the product. As another example, Clarence Birdseye was on vacation in Canada when he saw some salmon that had naturally frozen in ice and then thawed. When cooked, they tasted fresh. That was the origin of the frozen food industry.

With the media’s attention becoming more and more difficult to capture, it’s more important now than ever to create the perfect pitch. And it’s a bit of an art form. Why, because especially with national media, but also with regional media, and even bloggers, it’s important that each aspect of your pitch be on point. Today, I’m writing to help you learn the art of the perfect pitch, and teach you some great practices to consider.

You could sell more of your books if you can answer two questions honestly. First, how often do people think about your book? Second, how often do people think about their own problems? You will probably agree that people think more about how they can solve their problems, learn something, improve themselves or be entertained than they do about your book. However, if you can show them how they can help themselves in some way by reading your book you are likely to increase your sales and revenue.

Defining your target reader.

When asked who their target reader is, many authors reply, “I do not know,” or “everybody who likes (their topic).” Either answer will reduce your sales and profits. If your book is for everybody, how much would it cost you to reach them frequently enough to make an impact – if you could find a way to do so?

If you’re an author marketing your book, it goes without saying that you want to get in front of the right people, or in other words “key influencers.” And, where you find them is just as important as how you reach them. Social media offers an incredible opportunity to connect with these influencers in a meaningful way. And while it’s really common to use LinkedIn and Facebook, the art of connecting with influencers on Twitter can also make a huge difference to your end goals, especially when they retweet your Tweets.

Additionally, Twitter offers a direct, instantaneous link that allows you to take a more focused, more tailored approach. Anytime you like or reshare a Tweet, the person will know, and it opens the door to a great connection. Not only are you exposed to their followers, but as your relationship grows, you will likely see your follower numbers growing as well.

Deciding upon the price of your book may have more impact on your sales and profits than any other marketing decision. Yet some authors and publishers determine the price by matching competitive prices, multiplying the unit printing costs by eight, or pricing their book at what “feels right.” Any of those choices may negatively impact your operating income (OI). Instead, base your book’s price on marketing strategy.

Let’s look at the choice of multiplying the unit printing costs by eight. Suppose your unit printing cost is $1.87 (of course, that depends on the quantity printed). Eight times this amount would yield a list price of $14.95. This covers your distributor’s percentage (70%), and even with a promotional budget of $1 per book and could yield $1.61 per sale. At that rate you would need to sell 621 books to generate $1,000 of OI.

Everyone has a few fears before they publish their book and a big one is fear of what happens next. When I was first published, some 17 years ago now, I recall having nightmares that people hated my first book so much that they were chasing me down the street, throwing copies at me. Seriously. Even now, after 16 books, I still have concerns that each book will be hated. I know I’m not the only one, and I’m sure this fear has meant that a lot of great books never get published.

When authors ask me, “What if they hate my book?” my inevitable answer is “They might. But they might love it, too.” Candidly, there isn’t much you can do to get past the fear except to publish your book anyway. And even if you have written the best book on the planet, someone somewhere will dislike it. It may be surprising to you now, but you may even welcome constructive criticism since it can help you improve in the long run.

It is easy to create or buy a list of prospective buyers for your titles. But any list is comprised only of suspects, names of people who might fit the description of those in your target audience. You will waste time and money if you initially treat each as having the same need and desire to purchase your books. But by using a simple technique, you can remove those with no interest in buying your products and devote your marketing attention to contacting those with a higher likelihood of buying.

In this process, you rank potential buyers according to various criteria that you define. They begin as suspects, simply names on a list. Then as you qualify them according to their fit with your criteria, they are either removed from your list, or become prospects. Once they buy, they become customers.